Judges block US court bid to extradite most wanted sex criminal

A man labelled one of America’s most wanted child sex criminals is a free man after the High Court ruled that extraditing him to the US would breach his human rights.

Free man: Shawn Sullivan (Picture: AP)

Convicted paedophile Shawn Sullivan fled the US in 1994 after allegedly raping a 14-year-old girl and molesting two 11-year-olds.

Two senior British judges demanded assurances from the US government that the 43-year-old would not be placed on a controversial sex offenders’ treatment programme if extradited.

When the US authorities refused to comply, the judges rejected pleas to return Sullivan to America.

His lawyers argued Sullivan, who has been convicted of sexually assaulting two 12-year-old girls in Ireland, could be placed on the programme without a trial and with no hope of release.

Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Eady believe the programme would be a ‘flagrant denial’ of his rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and yesterday they ‘discharged’ him from court proceedings.

Sullivan, who has joint Irish-US nationality, was arrested in 2010 while living with Ministry of Justice policy manager Sarah Smith, 34, in Barnes, south-west London.

They married while he was held at Wandsworth Prison.

His counsel, Ben Brandon, told the High Court in April that no one had been released from the controversial treatment programme since it began in Minnesota in 1988.

Commitment to the programme usually followed a prison sentence but a criminal conviction was not necessary for it to take place, said Mr Brandon.